GFW Impact results, review, & video (Sept. 7, 2017): Keep it in the Zone

GFW Impact returned last night (Sept. 7) from the Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. You can find the results at the live blog here.

Challenge #1

Eli Drake defeated Matt Sydal to retain the GFW Global championship in the main event last night.

It was a good match that had Sydal fighting from underneath most of the time, which makes sense given the size discrepancy. In the end, Eli needed help from his boy Chris Adonis to keep his gold. After Sydal had fought back, Adonis placed the title on the apron. He then grabbed a chair and slid that to Drake just to distract the referee to allow Drake to use the belt as the weapon. Eli retrieved the title but Sydal dodged his attempt at using it and kneed him in the face.

This put the champion in a precarious position as Sydal climbed to the top for his Shooting Star Press. Adonis needed to intervene again by jumping on the apron to distract the challenger. Sydal kicked Adonis aside, but Chris was able to distract the referee enough for Drake to successfully use the championship as a weapon and hit his finish for the win.

Overall, it was a good main event. Drake is set up as the heel who will take any advantage as he needs it and as long as Adonis is ringside, all challengers will be at a disadvantage.

There won’t be much rest for the wicked though, as we’re learning his next challenger soon.

Who’s next?

Jim Cornette came out to cut a promo about the state of GFW and the title match later on. He clearly was favoring Matt Sydal to win it, painting him as the authority antagonist to Drake.

Johnny Impact came out and asked to face the winner of the main event. He talked up his resume as the champion of Triple A and Jim was considering it. (Though his whole thing is not giving people hand outs so I can’t imagine he would have.)

Before he could make a choice, an angry LAX came out. (Though they may always be angry.) Konnan claimed he didn’t know what white privilege was going on here that could make Corney consider Johnny. (He also made sure to say that the Triple A title means crap.) Jim told Cornette that he’s not discriminating against them because their Latino but they’re not getting special treatment for it either.

Low-Ki then took the microphone ran down Johnny Impact for just showing up, that his careers in Lucha Underground and WWE haven’t mattered. This turned into a big time brawl to set up the match. Later on, Cornette made a #1 contenders match between Ki and Johnny for next week.

This was a cool segment. LAX has been a fun stable and Low-Ki is great at being an angry MF. He was super intense in his stare down with Johnny Impact and it helps add to the excitement for next week. And that was before security had to pull everyone apart.

Low-Ki vs. Johnny is a match I’m excited for. Both guys are great workers and this should be quite the bout.

Down Mexico Way

They played about 30 minutes of a video package about GFW’s time at TripleMania.

The Rosemary stuff was the third segment of these videos. It focused more on Jeff Jarrett being angry at La Parka backstage than it did Rosemary. They alluded that something was wrong after Rosemary’s match and Karen Jarrett had an interview about how the wrestlers should all have respect for themselves. I’m not sure if Sexy Star was even mentioned by name.

But they couldn’t really say much. Despite kayfabe being dead, they can’t talk about the nitty gritty details of it because it is all behind the curtain stuff. In the world of the 2 hours of Impact, kayfabe is not dead. The whole premise of any wrestling show is “This is real” despite the fact the fans know the truth.

And that’s not to mention the fact that earlier in the show, Rosemary was healthy. Yes, it was because this show was taped weeks prior to TripleMania, but at the same time, that’s an outside thing that we shouldn’t have to take into account while watching. They went out of their way to say TripleMania was “next weekend” last week. Now to believe this Rosemary story is a big deal (and it definitely is), we have to forget that.

It may have been better if they didn’t touch this at all.

They used Moose and Lashley’s TripleMania presence to build issues between them. However, if you watched the show a couple week’s ago like I did, it wouldn’t have made much sense. They made it seem like they were part of a single’s gauntlet match for a championship instead of a random trios match where they (and Jeff Jarrett) were all part of the same team. This is probably better for what they’re planning to do with them after this, but for people who watched the show, it was more confusing than anything. (They did not touch upon Jeff Jarrett handing burritos out to the crowd if you’re wondering.)

They also discussed DJ Z’s return to Mexico 4 months after he had his big injury (colon fracture) when he was last down there. That was a nice thing to focus on.

It was too long to play all at once and should have at least been spread out more. This went from 9 to 9:30. They should have at least spread it out more instead of killing the momentum of what had been a pretty fun show leading up to that point.

Meet the Knockouts

GFW demonstrated tonight what their Knockouts division had to offer. And it looks good.

It started with a tag team match between Gail Kim/Allie & Sienna/Taryn Terrell. The match surprisingly had Gail Kim and not Allie has the face in peril, but in the end, a slight distraction from KM and a handful of tights got Sienna the pinfall win over Allie.

After the match, heels be heelin’ as they attacked Gail and Allie. This brought out a returning Rosemary, who cleaned house for a bit. However, the numbers got the better of her as well.

Then Taya arrived!

She slowly made her way to the ring with a crown a long, regal robe, got in the ring, and stared down both Champion Sienna and Taryn. Rosemary stood by Taya... and then paid for it.

Taya blindsided Rosemary and left her laying.

With Gail, Taryn, and now Taya in GFW, the division is suddenly twice as large. Now Gail and Taryn are likely part time, but they’ll at least be around until Bound for Glory so there are plenty of matches and feuds they can get out of these six.

While as a fan, I don’t love seeing Rosemary return twice in save situations and still get laid out, but this was to set up Taya/Rosemary and I’m so in on that match that I’ll forgive Rosemary’s failed saves.

There’s plenty they can do with the division and this was a nice teaser of that.

Thin division

LAX won a squash match against two dudes. Afterwards, oVe walked to the entryway and claimed they were the best team in the world and want the tag titles to prove it. Konnan, who doesn’t know what meth lab oVe crawled out of, said they’ll do it, but only in Tijuana.

This is a cool feud but it’s lacking because oVe literally defeated two loser teams to get here. Because the division is so small, they didn’t do anything of note to climb the ranks outside show up. Why not at least put them over the bigger Veterans of War first to give them a bit more legitimacy in this promotion?

X Division

Petey Williams & Sonjay Dutt defeated Trevor Lee & Caleb Konley in a really fun opening bout. Petey Williams looks great and both teams had some fun double team offense.

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Pros of the Show:

• Rosemary returns as Taya debuts
• Fun X Division tag match
• Low-Ki/Johnny pull apart was fun

Cons of the show:

• Pacing of the episode was poor
• The changed story around the Moose/Lashley match could be confusing to those who watched TripleMania

What was in the Impact Zone was fun. But they had a 40 minute period of nothing but pre-taped videos and backstage segments. That pacing threw the show off kilter.

Grade: B-

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